Unofficial news and tips about Google

April 14, 2010

Eric Schmidt on Chrome OS

"The promise of Chrome and Chrome OS is that the devices that you give to your employees will have a 2-second boot time, will be completely disposable and the price will be incredibly low."

Chrome OS computers will no longer be personal because it doesn't matter which computer you use. After logging to your Google account, Chrome OS will retrieve your bookmarks, themes, settings, web history from Google's servers. Your data is stored in a central location and you can access it from all your devices.

Computers will boot almost instantly, so you no longer have to wait. They'll be cheap, easy to replace and to maintain.

You can already use Chrome on your computer, but a Chrome OS computer is optimized for running a browser, doesn't have extraneous software and it's inherently more secure.

Anonymous, you imply that because they will be inexpensive, they will also be bad for the environment. This would be poor logic. As Crizzo Designs pointed out, the machine will use less power because it will have a significantly lighter OS. It will also use less power because the hardware will have no moving parts. Not only will this computer be more green in its use but also in its construction. Once again, the hardware is simplified and requires no moving parts allowing it to dump other things that moving parts call for like a robust cooling system (that might be more so because the processor will be working less hard but its all the same in that Chrome OS is "green"). In other words the materials required to build the physical machine will be far less in quantity. As for the part of his comment about "decomposability" - he was talking about someone getting rid of it and switching to a new one because it's easy to do so (data wise). When that person "disposes" of the machine they will not be throwing it in the trash and sending it to the local landfill. On the contrary, due to their simplicity of hardware and OS, the machines will be very salvageable meaning that they will be recycled more than computers (and their parts) currently are. Also Google has been a pro-green reputation. Though it's not like they will have to work to make this "green;" it's inherently "green." Anonymous, this is what we call a good idea.

I'll bark about sync again. Unless Google figures out how to make data ubiquitous and not just stored on their servers, this isn't going to be a game changer. People want to use local copies on their desktops and then when they're on the move they want those files with them with little or no hassle. When they make changes or add files locally they want them back on their desktop when they return, again with little to no hassle. This means not by Bluetooth, WiFi, USB, Firewire, or other antiquated methods. This means by syncing data across devices and servers seamlessly.

I'm a little disturbed by marketing point "cheap, easy to replace and to maintain" and "completely disposable and the price will be incredibly low". To me that says not only environmentally unfriendly, but junk second rate hardware. Hopefully that is just what it looks like, a marketing hook for corporate management and number crunchers, and not indicative of WalMart quality.

@Randy.. you make some good points.. but why is keeping information on a flash drive any different than a hard drive? And no where does it say this is marketed for the business guy... seems like this is more just for a casual internet user.. I have no problem with keeping some of my info on a SD card or jumpdrive... also most of the planet has wifi or internet access at all times anyway..

Chrome OS' philosophy is to use a diskless computer, with Flash storage that's mostly used as a cache for your data. Even if you're no longer connected to the Internet, you may still use web applications with offline access.

Eric says Microsoft does not embrace HTML5. Maybe he doesn't know that ALL the major browsers support some standards of HTML5 (IE8 supports HTML5 offline storage), but when the standard is finalized none of them will support all of HTML5 standards. Reference: http://samples.msdn.microsoft.com/ietestcenter/

I do like what he said about thinking mobile first. That's good thinking.

@Crizzo - There is nothing wrong with using a flash storage. The need to keep data sync'd by using removable media is clunky and archaic. I should be able to use the device, access and update any data, and then sign out of the mobile device; when I get to my desktop that data should be sync'd with my Google account there, including local storage.

For example right now when I take pictures with my Moto Droid and upload them to Picasa web I must manually download those pictures to my desktop. It works the same way for Google Docs.

In any event it will be interesting to watch how mobile devices start to evolve over the next couple of years.

Chrome OS computers will no longer be personal because it doesn't matter which computer you use. After logging to your Google account, Chrome OS will retrieve your bookmarks, themes, settings, web history from Google's servers. Your data is stored in a central location and you can access it from all your devices.